“Be the best you can be: excellence through creativity, community, commitment and challenge”

At Wyton on the Hill it is our firm belief that all children should receive what is their fundamental right: a good education. Not only should it be a good education, but also an education that is right for them. We are determined to ensure that the substance of our education gives children the best possible start, preparing them well for the challenges they will face in life as well as more immediately at the next stage of their education, laying the foundations for social mobility and personal fulfilment.

Since the current ‘National Curriculum’ was introduced in 2014, we have been striving to develop a curriculum which we believe is ‘right’ for our children because it delivers the ‘National Curriculum’ objectives in a way which takes account of the unique character of our school and the academic, personal and social needs of our children. The delivery of the ‘right’ curriculum will empower them to develop as active, informed citizens of the community (both their own and the global community) and as lifelong learners with a passion for enquiry and understanding.

Our current curriculum, therefore, is based both on the key content, concepts and principles of the ‘National Curriculum’ and on our own curriculum priorities:

Community - we aim to offer experiences which help pupils to develop British Values and to be engaged in their own Spiritual, Social, Moral and Cultural development.

Commitment – we aim to provide experiences which encourage pupils to engage in and commit to their learning with a ‘growth mind set’ and the confidence to think for themselves and ‘own’ their own learning.

Challenge – we aim to provide experiences which provide pupils with the opportunity to stretch themselves and encourage them to understand that hard work and perseverance lead to progress.

Our curriculum is carefully planned and organised in two parts to ensure that we offer a broad range of experiences:

our academic curriculum – the subjects taught, as defined by the National Curriculum

our personal development curriculum – activities which promote pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development (SMSC), and enrich their lives and those of our whole school community and make them proud of their British values and diverse society to which they belong and in which they play an active part. Specific examples of these activities include: our Dangerous Curriculum Days, our Multiple Intelligences Days, our Big Conversations, experiences designed to develop the 7Rs and our Rights Respecting Days.

The two aspects of our curriculum are not mutually exclusive, however, and often lessons across the curriculum will be planned to include one or more aspects of personal development .

Our curriculum is also designed to ensure depth of learning. At Wyton on the Hill Primary School our definition of progress is the widening and deepening of essential knowledge, skills, understanding and learning behaviours. We design, organise and plan our curriculum to ensure that children are not merely covering content but achieving a depth to their learning which enables them to use their skills and understanding in all areas of the curriculum.

Our careful curriculum design and planning means that we build in many opportunities for repetition and practice opportunities for essential knowledge, skills and understanding in every subject. This ensures that children are able to revisit previous learning, which allows them gradually to develop a deeper understanding of the skills and processes within subjects, at their own pace and in the best possible way for each individual child. Staff are encouraged to plan learning sequences designed to move the nature of children’s thinking to a higher order level of understanding rather than just the acquisition of new facts and knowledge.

We are proud that our curriculum gives our children the skills, confidence and self-belief to lead a happy and fulfilled life by encouraging them to aim high and work towards their goals and dreams in life.

How do our curriculum priorities support learning in our school?

Huntingdon is a diverse area in many ways, and Wyton on the Hill represents a unique cross-section of our local, national and global community. It is important, therefore, that our curriculum encourages all pupils to explore and celebrate diversity and creativity, whilst becoming enthusiastic, independent and confident learners ready to take their place as positive British and global citizens. The curriculum must also be flexible, dynamic and always open to change and modification, allowing the children to lead their learning where possible.

At Wyton on the Hill Primary School careful analysis and discussion about our pupils’ backgrounds, life experiences and culture have helped us to design a curriculum with our four key priorities underpinning every subject area. We believe that by focusing on these key priorities our children will be ready to meet successfully the challenges of the next stage of their education and their lives.

Please see below for a brief outline of each of our key drivers and their relevance to our particular community.

Creativity
The constant flux of modern day life means our young people need to be resilient, innovative and intellectually curious – all key characteristics of entrepreneurs. Creativity and enterprise play a key part in our curriculum design and are embedded in every area of teaching and learning. As teachers, we are committed to ensuring a focus on creativity and enterprise by planning learning challenges and activities which will:

encourage imagination and originality

provide opportunities for pupils to reflect critically on their learning

allow space for thinking and choice

give pupils the freedom to fail with the confidence to try again.

Community
Our community is highly diverse, as it is home to members of the three military forces as well as a large number of civilian families from a wide range of backgrounds. It is essential for community cohesion that our school curriculum champions respect and diversity and promotes tolerance and common values amongst our pupils.

It is therefore important that our approach to curriculum delivery is as much about developing a sense of community as it is about inspiring curiosity and creativity. We do this is by promoting British Values and Spiritual, Social, Moral and Cultural development on a daily basis in a number of ways, including:

promoting the importance of talk and collaboration in consolidating learning. Teachers ensure the use of structured Talk for Learning activities across the curriculum, during which our pupils are invited to explore and share their own opinions, whilst listening and responding respectfully to those of others;

promoting teamwork and reciprocity and ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to learn with and from each other;

regularly sharing and celebrating our values and ethos within our community, for example, in our work towards Unicef’s Rights Respecting Schools Award in all that we do;

developing partnership work wherever possible with other groups within the community, such as the Parish Council and Pine Hill.

Commitment
Our aim has been to design a curriculum which encourages pupils to engage in and commit to their learning with a ‘growth mind set’ and the confidence to think for themselves and ‘own’ their own learning.

Wyton on the Hill Primary School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment.